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In this episode Joel and Antonia dive deep into the needs and challenges of the ENFP personality type.
In this podcast on the ENFP personality type you’ll find:
- ENFP
- Sometimes ENFPs don’t know what the right decision is until after they make the decision.
- ENFP Survey
- ENFPs struggle with decision-making.
- Clarity comes after they are in action and it feels so inefficient to them.
- Janus-like quality: walking contradictions
- Joel is an ENFP
- ENFPs can go down the road of allowing their emotions to run the show.
- Or they get the message that their emotions can’t be trusted, so they lock down those emotions and ignore their gut.
- Over-emotional vs. over-thinking: same root and the same solution
- ENFPs will commit to something (roles, relationships, images, projects, jobs) then realize it isn’t right for them and they may have to hurt someone to extract themselves.
- This is why they get the reputation of being flighty because they are afraid to commit out of fear of making the wrong decision.
- Behavior is an emergent of how your mind is wired.
- Car Model
- The Driver of an ENFP is Extraverted Intuition (Ne). We’ve nicknamed it “Exploration.”
- Ne is a learning process
- It is all about messing with the external environment to see patterns emerge.
- Speculative conclusions based on patterns it sees.
- Behind the curtain thinking
- Ne vs Ni podcast
- ENFPs get so good at pattern recognition they see things the average person does not see.
- Ne is very optimistic. Always looking for possibilities and potential.
- Too many possibilities.
- ENFPs copilot is Introverted Feeling (Fi) – “Authenticity.”
- Authenticity is about doing what feels in alignment
- What are the nuances of what I am feeling?
- What is ethical for me?
- ENFPs make their best decisions by using Authenticity
- Behind Authenticity is the 10 yr old Extraverted Thinking (Te) – “Effectiveness”
- What works? What gets the job done?
- Authenticity requires embodiment before it knows what it wants, so it is easier to skip Authenticity and go to the tertiary to “get the job done.”
- Effectiveness can lead to a lot of decisions that the ENFP doesn’t want to make but will make to be more expeditious or considerate of others.
- Te tertiary is about getting into action.
- Te short circuits the energetic wastefulness of Fi.
- Society is impatient. It doesn’t want to wait for the ENFP to find clarity.
- When the ENFP makes too many quick decisions, they end up committing to something that isn’t right for them.
- If one of their values is commitment, they won’t go back on their decision. They sit in misery to honor their commitment.
- Or they commit to nothing out of fear of being trapped
- Behind the driver is the inferior function (3 yr old) Introverted Sensing – “Memory.”
- Memory is about precedence. Status quo.
- Memory is a blind spot for ENFPs and can hijack their life
- When they feel stuck, without options, depressed, trapped – it is a sign the ENFP is in that memory process.
- It can feel like life is being choked out of them, and it is never going to get better.
- Can show up in times of illness.
- ENFPs are already so aware of their body interactions due to Introverted Feeling that illness can seem overwhelming.
- Acknowledge that you aren’t stuck. It isn’t real. It is just a story. Time to get back into your Driver of Extraverted Intuition.
- Introverted Feeling is the solution to a lot of these problems.
- ENFPs need to slow waaaaay down.
- ENFPs are accustomed to moving fast, but they have to approach decisions from a very slow, internal viewpoint.
- Recognize that Authenticity can be fickle.
- Keep context in a way that supports Introverted Feeling.
- The fussy artist lives in Fi – if the conditions aren’t right the Fi can’t get something done, but the ENFP wants to get something done due to their tertiary Te, so they jump into action.
- Allow yourself to be fussy
- For an ENFP their highest leverage point is what they are saying NO to.
- That way they aren’t overwhelmed by the things they have committed but aren’t right for them.
- Opportunities may pass you by. That’s okay.
- You begin to realize that a lot of opportunities you were chasing weren’t in alignment anyway.
- You surround yourself with satisfying relationships and opportunities.
- Every personality type gives something to the social ecosystem that no other type can provide.
- ENFPs bring embodiment: they have to embody something fully to grasp it and bring it to others.
- Like a tuning fork sending out vibrations to others to make others feel optimistic.
- ENFPs see others at their best.
- People seek out ENFPs because they love how they feel around them.
- Michael Moore is an ENFP who performs the things he is convicted about.
- ENFPs love being coaches, directors, performers, etc.
- Another challenge ENFPs have is the tendency to attract emotional or social leeches.
- The ENFP may start to learn that they can’t stay present with people or someone will trap them into a vortex of social leeches.
- Lots of reasons why people perceive ENFPs as flighty – they avoid going deep with people.
- Infrastructure stacks over time and they don’t realize they are overwhelmed until it happens and they break down.
- Why are you keeping your commitment? Is this a value of yours? Or are you afraid of upsetting someone?
- ENFPs need to permit themselves to change plans if necessary.
- The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron
- ENFPs find themselves surrounded by Crazymakers.
- Fi can find any emotion in their heart or mind so if they encounter someone who is emotionally struggling the ENFP can experience what it is like being that person, so they have a lot of sympathy for them.
- If an ENFP can find any emotion in their heart, they can find any motivation in their heart, and they are aware of the dark places we all carry within us.
- Emotions are the seat of motivation and emotions are powerful for ENFPs.
- ENFPs try to avoid the wrong emotions.
- The dragon’s job is to guard the gold.
- Being able to understand the human experience and sympathize with people in their darkest space is on the other side of facing those dragons.
- An insecurity ENFPs expressed in the survey is the sense that they are the dumbest person in the room.
- ENFPs are brilliant and highly intuitive, but articulation can be a challenge.
- “I feel strongly about this; I’m not sure why but I think the awareness will come later.”
- It feels empowering to do this because it buys the necessary time for Fi to do its job.
- Trusting your gut is the first challenge before anyone else can trust it.
- Emotion is deep
- Feelings are temporary
- Determine the difference when you are feeling it.
- Understand that everything you do is chasing an emotion in the hopes of gaining the necessary motivation.
- What emotion do you want to feel?
- It isn’t about doing. It is about being and feeling.
- What emotion is most essential for you right now? Excitement? Empowerment? Romance?
- Make a list of how you can feel the desired emotion.
- If you are in the middle of a fight stop to ask yourself, “What emotion do I want to feel right now?” you will begin to access emotions you want on command.
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Podcast - Episode 0085 - INTP Personality Type Advice
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92 comments
Oh. My. God. This is so spot on! You guys are brilliant. This makes so much sense to me. Oftentimes I feel like I am so out of step with others—and absolutely make LOTS of decisions because I am feel FOMO or I am trying to figure out what’s right for me.
It’s a little funny you say he’s so against it, cos I was aware of MBTI stuff for a while (I took a personality psych class back in the day), but didn’t really look into it deeper. But the person who got me into MBTI stuff recently, and in depth, is a friend who’s INTJ. He says it really helps him understand people’s motivations and viewpoints better, cos the systematic nature of it is something he can grasp better than just trying to get into people’s shoes.
I dunno if you’ve resolved this at this point, but think definitely emphasizing that it’s a system of describing how different people interact with the world might help. Some people seem to view it almost like astrology, that it’ll tell you everything about your life and all the people of one type are the same, and they do box people in or stereotype others. But that can happen with anything, if it’s misused. People like systems, they like stereotypes, and so they’re prone to doing that with anything that’ll take it, cos it’s in our nature to streamline things that way.
And honestly, there are some people who are against psychology in general cos they don’t feel it’s rigourously scientific enough.
But at it’s core, MBTI descriptive more than it is predictive. All the functions are just a way to describe different psychological processes and where they’re focused (ie inward or outward). A person tends to rely on some of these processes more often and more easily than others, and that is what the type is describing. Maybe try telling him that you don’t expect this to be a magic bullet, that you know the system has strengths and weaknesses, but that understanding the processes you tend to lean on will be a springboard for personal growth?
It’s a tough one there…. in my experience, when the reason someone rejects something is cos it’s not scientifically rigorous enough, it’s very hard to get through to them. Usually that’s indicative of a relatively narrow way of assessing things, and the fact is that some things just aren’t scientific enough in nature to even be examined that way in a true sense. But my view is that MBTI has given me a lot of good personal insights, too… and it doesn’t need to be validated on those terms to be of value, if it’s led to some useful personal insights for you. Maybe that might even be somethign to bring up – maybe you can ask him, not to agree with or value the system itself, but at least to appreciate that it’s bringing useful insights to you, and to support you on that level?
Anyway enough rambling from me. Good luck :)
Really good! A lot of this really resonated with me a lot.
I had a laugh at the times when you talked about relationships… I 100% fall into that category where you can see the best parts of everyone and it causes you to end up in relationships with people who actually suck (to put it bluntly) or you put up with someone’s junk for way too long – and then, to make it even worse, when you realize that this is who they really are, or they really are being unreasonable, and put your foot down, they’re so used to you being agreeable that they flip out on you. It’s happened to me so many times!
And I really liked the bit about starting with emotion rather than action. I used to be all about my Fi, but in recent years have been avoiding it…. now I’m trying to get back on the bike, haha. Identifying what emotion you’re striving for really does clarify your actions better. I really like that a lot.
The parts I didn’t agree with – first and foremost, the stuff about not feeling as smart as other people. I know I’m just as smart as others, and maybe smarter in some respects. I have that pattern recognition thing nailed – like recently, my brother was pretty impressed that I called a plot point and character’s motivation in a show we were watching to the point where it was almost 100% correct, though he only had an inkling about where it was going. Or like, in university, one of my TAs said I would make a great anthropologist cos I can see so many different angles and could anticipate all her questions and challenges to my ideas. And I think that does make me smart. Actually, my friends often have told me they think it’s pretty cool that I can call people’s motivations, political outcomes, etc. pretty accurately a lot of the time.
Though, that said, I do sometimes find talking with NTs is a little weird, not cos I don’t feel as smart as them, but cos they tend to come at things from a rather different angle and aren’t always willing to consider what I have to say. It’s like they’re coming from one angle, and I propose a view from a different angle (or 3), but cos it’s not their angle they don’t want to listen and have a hard time budging from their perch to consider things in a different light.
Also, I guess I haven’t had too much of an issue with not committing cos I feel like people latch on and it limits me. I’ve gotten fairly good at just telling someone that it’s been really good talking to them, but I really wanted to catch up with a few other people before I (or they) have to go, and just sticking to that. I’ve definitely had my share of leeches, but it really doesn’t affect my overall approach to people or anything.
Oh, just thinking of that, I liked the tuning fork thing too. Something I noticed in my life that seems to be uncommon in others’ lives is that, especially when I’m feeling at my best, random people just come up to me and start talking to me, & open up to me really fast out of nowhere. And I totally don’t mind it at all. Like, this teenage boy once fell asleep next to me on an airplane, and fell asleep with his head on my shoulder, and I was like, okay sure, and then while he was asleep he sort of grabbed his pillow and put his head in my lap, and I was like,… okay sure, and I only woke him up when my leg started to fall asleep, and he was mortified to realize he had done that, but I really, honestly didn’t mind. Or the other day, a guy came up to me at the train station and just started telling me about how he used to be a car thief, and his whole story about his struggles trying to get on and stay on a straighter path – and I was like, wow, this is so interesting, and really enjoyed hearing the story, and honestly I felt kind of honoured that he would come tell me this stuff when I hadn’t even met him before.
It was interesting when I realized that that kind of thing doesn’t happen to everyone. Maybe it’s that tuning fork business, hey?
Oh also, thinking about the “making decisions while in action” stuff, I used to be pretty bad for that. It’s very true that we need to embody things. But my “hack” for that now is to use my super imagination – I just imagine doing something, or not doing it, and see how I feel about it. Even for simple things like deciding what to have for supper. Actually, before I listened to this, I gave my husband some advice using that exact method (to imagine he had made a certain choice about his job, imagine telling all the people involved, imagine not doing this thing, and how does he feel about it?), not even realizing what an ENFP thing that was until I heard the podcast :P It made me chuckle.
So yeah guys, good insights, thank you :)
oh my goodness! this podcast has me in tears. i feel validated. i am currently in a state of depression trying to work through authenticity. I’m stuck in memory, failures from the past that keep me stuck in effectiveness. I’m now in a depressive state and can’t get out of this loop. i will continue to plug in here and keep moving forward and following the processes you have suggested in this podcast. many many thanks ❣️
OMG this is sooo how I feel in life… I can’t believe how on point this is! and the problems i find myself in Work and Relationships are pretty much how i feel in these moments.